The Writers of Wales Database

FINCH, PETER

19 Southminster Road, Cardiff, CF2 5AT
Tel: 02920 493093
Email: peter@peterfinch.co.uk
Website: http://www.peterfinch.co.uk/
Blog: http://peterfinchpoet.blogspot.com/
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Poet, critic, topographer, short–story writer, experimenter and literary performer. Born in Cardiff where he still lives. Editor of the journal Second Aeon from 1966 to 1974. Managed the Oriel Bookshop from 1974 until 1998. Chief Executive of Academi (Yr Academi Gymreig/The Welsh Academy) until 2011. First CEO of Literature Wales. Now writes full time. He is well known and respected on the reading circuit as an entertaining performer. He has published more than 20 collections of poetry, a book of short stories, edited with Meic Stephens Green Horse (Christopher Davies, 1978), an anthology of younger poets from Wales, and edited with Grahame Davies The Big Book of Cardiff (Seren, 2005), and has published a number of guide books for new writers including the best selling How to Publish Your Poetry (Allison & Busby, 1985) which is now in its third edition. He is the author of the self–publishing section of A&C Black’s Artists and Writers’ Yearbook.

His comprehensive website is at http://www.peterfinch.co.uk/. His Real Cardiff (Seren 2002; 2004, 2009) books now run to three volumes and have been supplemented with a book on the whole country, Real Wales (Seren, 2008). He edits the Real series of guides to British conurbations from Seren. Peter is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Architects of Wales (RSAW), and a Fellow of the English Association (FEA). He was given the Ted Slade Award for Services To Poetry in 2011. A number of examples of his public poetry are included in the built environment of Cardiff, notably outside John Lewis in The Hayes and South Wales Police HQ on James Street.

Peter’s interview with The Argotist Online is now online at: http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Finch%20interview.htm

Selected Publications:
Between 35 and 42 (Alun Books, 1982)
How to Publish Your Poetry (Allison & Busby, 1985)
Selected Poems (Poetry Wales Press)
Make (Galloping Dog Press, 1990)
The Poetry Business (Seren, 1994)
Poems for Ghosts (Seren, 1995)
Useful (Seren, 1997)
Antibodies (Stride, 1997)
Food (Seren, 2001)
Real Cardiff (Seren, 2002)
Real Cardiff Two: The Greater City (Seren, 2004) 
The Welsh Poems (Shearsman, 2006)
Selected Later Poems (Seren, 2007)
Real Wales (Seren, 2008)
Real Cardiff Three (Seren, 2009)
Zen Cymru (Seren, 2010)

Contributed to:
Green Horse (co-editor) (Christopher Davies, 1978)
The Big Book of Cardiff (co-editor) (Seren, 2005)